Why Instagram Should Hire Customer Support Reps

Dear Instagram, I get it. It’s hard to hire people to service the 1 billion people using your platform. But because you have a BILLION people using your platform, don’t you think that’s even more of a reason to hire customer support reps?  I’ve been using Instagram for years. It’s by far, my favorite social media platform. Instagram is a big reason that I was able to support my family for the last 2 1/2 years and for that, I am eternally grateful. But there is one GINORMOUS issue that seems to get worse as the years go by. When things stop working, we have no one to help us. Sure, we can hit that “report a problem” button but honestly, out of the hundreds of times I’ve tried that, only once has something actually been fixed because of my reports. Or… maybe it just fixed itself and my cries for help were useless. In fact, I’m sure that’s more likely the reason. Who knows. But for the sake of getting my thoughts across and on behalf of everyone on Instagram who struggles with the lack of support, I’ve compiled a list of reasons why Instagram should hire customer support reps.

People in the US Need Jobs

Let’s start with the fact that as of the beginning of this August 2020, nearly 18 million people in the US are unemployed. 18 million! Imagine how grateful Americans would be to be able to sit in their homes and answer emails, helping the many Instagram users who are experiencing technical difficulties. I’m betting most would jump at the chance! It would help people to pay their bills and tackle the lack of customer support all at the same time.

Those That Spend Money on Ads, Have No Support

Many businesses (especially us small businesses) are spending their hard earned money to boost posts because we have to make sure our posts are seen (that algorithm is a whole other story). We have no way to contact anyone if something is wrong with the ads or they take too long to be approved. I’ve boosted a number of posts where I was sharing information with an important, and short deadline. Those boosts were not approved 24 hours later, missing the deadline, so I had to cancel them. I know Instagram probably doesn’t need our small business money, but no business wants to lose money because of lack of support, do they?

Scammers and Hackers are Out of Control

I couldn’t tell you the amount of scam messages I receive on Instagram on a regular basis. I’ve seen hard working small business owners, bloggers and content creators lose access to their accounts because hackers have gained control and demanded a ransom from them (only to keep the money and never give back access to the account). Scammers are constantly pretending to be financial institutions, trying to gain your personal information so that they can scam you out of money and ruin your credit. And don’t get me started on the crazy number of sugar daddies, bitcoin pushers and companies that want to sell you fake followers and likes. It’s insane. There is no way to report these issues and no one to reach out to. Sometimes, I’ll report an account that is trying to scam others and I’ll hear back, 6-9 months later, that the account doesn’t go against IG’s terms. Imagine how many people they’ve scammed in 6-9 months! That needs to change, Instagram!

Instagram Users Deserve Support

Amazon earns approximately 17 million in sales every hour. Imagine if Amazon turned off their phones and didn’t have chat or email addresses to reach out to when you have a problem? I can’t. If Amazon can staff customer support, so can Instagram. Without Instagram users, Instagram wouldn’t exist. Don’t Instagram users deserve to have the ability to contact support if something is wrong with their account?

How About Just Because We Need It?

Because maybe that’s the only reason we need…

I’m just one of a billion people across the world that use Instagram and I know that Instagram may never see this.

In fact, I doubt they will.

But if by some miracle, Kevin Systrom or Adam Mosseri or any of the Instagram staff see this, I beg you to consider hiring a customer support staff. With all of the bad press Facebook and Instagram are getting lately, Instagram could turn that all around by employing a large staff of customer support. You’d be helping people feed their families and taking a huge amount of stress off of those of us that rely on Instagram to pay our bills.  It would make us love Instagram even more than we already do!